Technologist and Maker

If you were lucky enough to get your hands on one of the first versions of the Printrbot Metal Plus printers, model 1504, you are probably a very happy person.

These printers are such a huge improvement from the previous wooden Printrbot Plus versions given their rigidity from the metal frame and experiencing-altering upgrades such as an auto-leveling bed. But, if you have one of these Printrbot Metal Plus printers, there are three modifications that are critical. If you bought your printer in June 2015 or later, these modifications should already be included in your kit or built Printrbot Metal Plus. If you bought your bot prior to June 2015, you should definitely check and order these (some free) upgrades from Printrbot if you don’t have them on your machine! Note that the first two upgrades are specific to the Printrbot Metal Plus, but the third (extruder) upgrade is something that anyone with a metal Printrbot printer (especially the Printrbot Metal Simple) should be looking to do as an upgrade.

Here is a brief description of the three mods:

Wire Relief for Printrbot PlusWhat happens when you bend a copper wire over and over and over? It snaps and breaks! That is a fairly common issue with all 3D printers, that wires can break after enough repetitive bending. Wires need to be flexible and move somewhat as the extruder moves in multiple axes. The way to minimize or eliminate this threat of breaking wires is to have your wire bend over a longer length (less sharp angle) and not have a tight bend anywhere that is flexing.The free wire relief kit from Printrbot consists of a new bracket that holds your extruder/hot end, z sensor and extruder stepper motor. The kit is a bit time consuming to install as it requires dismantling your extruder completely. The most important part of the kit is a somewhat flexible plastic bracket that guides all wires at a 90 angle from the back of the extruder bracket, therefore eliminating any sharp angles that tend to put stress on you extruder wires. Note that a variation of this kit is already included in the Printrbot Metal Plus dual extruder upgrade kit and contains the flexible plastic bracket to ensure the optimal mounting of wires leaving the extruder bracket.

Spring and screw kit for Printrbot PlusInitially, when the bed was heated on my Printrbot Plus Metal, I would hear and see the issue in my prints. The bed would make a crunchy noise as the bed moved along the Y axis (front and back). In the print, I would see the print drifted, meaning aspects of the print that were supposed to be vertical would be printed slanted in about a 45 degree angle. This was due to the fact that the bed would stick a bit and not move along the Y axis properly and was not positioned properly throughout the print and resulted in a slanted print. When the bed was cool, it was able to move along the Y axis (front and back) without any issue, resistance or abnormal sound. Once the aluminum bed was heated, the metal bed expanded the and bed no longer moved freely (without any resistance). When heated, the bed actually was expanding and would catch a bit in the track (on the left and right side) as the bed was pushing against the sides of the brackets and bearings. The original design has the brackets for the bed securely attached to the printer frame. The kit allows the bracket on the left side to move every so slightly when under pressure from the heated bed, therefore allowing the bracket to move slightly to accommodate the heated (expanded) and cooled (contracted) bed. The spring and screw kit (you may need to contact Printrbot support, support at printrbot.com, to get this part as I don’t see it listed on the Printrbot website any longer) consists of 4 longer screws and 4 springs. The spring and screw kit replaces 4 short screws (that connect the bracket to the frame) with longer screws along with a sprint for each longer screw. The springs are strong enough to provide a lot of pressure to hold the bracket firm. However, when the bed expands and pushes against the bracket, the bracket can move a tiny bit as the springs have it secured with a bit of wiggle room possible when the right force is applied. And when the bed cools, the bracket is pulled in a bit. Below is a picture to illustrate the point. In this first sketch, you can see the initial flawed design where the bracket was securely connected to the frame and is not able to move at all with the two screws tightened snug:
In this second sketch you can see the fix when the free spring and screw kit is installed. Longer screws are tightened against springs, which still keeps the bracket tight, but allows for a slight bit of movement given the slightly oversized holes in the frame, which allows for enough movement to accommodate the build plate’s expansion and contraction:The fix only took about 30 minute to install. Most of the time was removing the many screws to take the bottom off the Printrbot Plus Metal. And the repair kit completely fixed the Y axis drifting issue. BTW, this is just an issue for Printrbot Plus Metal printers that were shipped through spring of 2015. New Printrbot Plus Metals that are shipping today already incorporate the spring and screw kit.

Printrbot Alu Extruder V2
Printrbot upgraded their aluminum extruder (Printrbot Alu Extruder V2) to shorten the distance from the direct drive extruder filament gear to the hot end. And to eliminate unnecessary space surrounding the drive gear. Why? To allow more flexible filaments to work properly in your printer. PLA is rigid enough that it works in just about any printer. ABS is a bit more flexible, but most printers will also work with ABS as they have been tested or were modified to use the PTFE or metal tubing “extruder straw” technique. However, as you move to even more flexible filaments such as NinjaFlex filament, you need to have an extruder that is setup for such flexible filaments. Extruders, such as the Printrbot Alu Extruder V1, have too much room between the filament drive gear (that makes your filament move into your extruder) and the top of extruder. As the filament is pushed down into the extruder, the heat from the extruder makes the filament even more flexible and it will get pushed into a tangled pretzel instead of being pushed into the extruder. With this upgraded extruder, the distance from the filament drive gear and the top of the hot end are made as short as possible and does not allow the filament to get tangled.This is a pictures of the Printrbot V1 aluminum extruder, note the large distance between the drive gear to the metal path to the hot end indicated by a red rectangle. Also note the space under and around the drive gear, where filament can get tangled:Below is a picture of the Printrbot V2 aluminum extruder, note the short distance from the drive gear to the metal path to the hot end and no space around and under the drive gear:
There are workarounds to print flexible materials, mostly in the form of guides that provide some rigidity to the filament after leaving the drive gear, but none of them are as reliable as upgrading to this V2 extruder.One fun fact, there is a special version of the V2 extruder that has a shorter top aluminum arm. You can see the spring arm (where you press with your thumb to release the spring and load or unload your filament) is longer on the v2 extruder. I would assume that is longer so it is easier to press the lever on the V2. However, if you have a dual extruder setup, you need to order the special V2 extruder that has a shorter arm so it does not interfere with the tighter dual extruder setup.

I immediately realized that its ability to print paste materials would greatly expand what I could print and create. I was impressed with its ability to print 3D food as well as print other flexible materials in 3D such as pure silicone, clay, etc. I recently (late May 2015) received my Structur3D Discov3ry paste extruder and my first impressions are that I’m impressed with the overall quality of the final product. The extruder consists of a beefy metal unit that holds a 60cc syringe and, using a stepper motor like those used for filament printers, compresses the syringe to pump paste material to a paste print tip, fundamentally no different than a filament printer that extrudes molten plastic.

Although I have setup my Structur3d Discov3ry extruder, I have not yet printed my first print (will be printing first print next week). I have spent a lot of time configuring/attaching/preparing my paste extruder and want to share my experience so far to help those with Printrbot printers. With this Structur3d Discov3ry paste extruder being so new, we’re all blazing new ground, so I want to share this information quickly to help others with Printrbot printers.

Here are the major tasks to get a Printrbot Metal Plus setup with the Structur3D Discov3ry extruder:

1. Connect paste extruder wiring:

The guys at Structu3D are awesome, and with their help we figured out the wiring for Printrbot printers. However, you first need to decide if you are going to make your machine a dual extruder (one extruder being a paste extruder and one extruder printing filament) or single extruder. In order to go the dual route, you need to make sure your printer’s board/electronics supports dual extruders. Alternately, you can create a single extruder setup where you configure your extruder wiring to allow different extruders to be unplugged and replugged when switching between your filament extruder and paste extruder (my preferred approach). In this approach, both extruders can be physically mounted to your printer, but only one will be plugged into your printer’s board at a time and therefore only one will be active at a time. There is no need to unmount your paste extruder when it is not active if your mount is lightweight and not too bulky and does not get in your way while filament printing.

To connect your extruder, see the marked up wiring cheat sheet supplied by Structur3D below. By visual inspection of a new and old Printrbot printer’s stepper motor wires, you will see that Printrbots have the “Code 1” (labeled Printrbot below) wiring color codes, and the appropriate wire connections are indicated below (via red lines) as follows (Discover3y to Printrbot): black to red, green to green, blue to yellow, red to blue:

In the spirit of getting the extruder up and running, more quickly, I just unplugged my filament extruder and plugged the Discov3ry extruder directly to the Printrbot printer board. I bought the OSEPP I2C Bus Cable from Fry’s and soldered the 4 Structur3D Discov3ry stepper motor (extruder) wires to the Fry’s connector. Long-term, I want a female plug mounted on the exterior of my printer that allows my Printrbot filament and Structur3D Discov3ry paste extruders to be connected and disconnected easily without opening up and accessing my printer’s board. Short-term, I have the bottom off my printer and I plug and unplug extruder connection plugs as needed. Obviously, make sure your printer is turned off whenever you are unplugging and plugging plugs into the Printrboard.

Below is a photo from Printrbot of the extruder motor plug on the Printrboard (it is labeled “EMOT” for Extruder MOTor) on the Printrboard F board (with the plug indicated by the red rectangle):

And below is a diagram from Printrbot of the Printrboard, note that the EMOT connector is indicated by the red rectangle and is labeled as “E”. The orientation of the Printrbot stepper motor wires is helpful to make sure you translate properly and plug theStructur3D Discov3ry stepper motor in properly. Keep in mind that stepper motors are pretty forgiving, so plugging in the motor incorrectly will not damage the motor, but it also will not work properly:

2. Print & install your paste tip mount:

The paste extruder has a plastic tip that connects to the end of a flexible plastic tube. In order to print using this extruder, you need to find a way to mount the tips on your printer. I tried, but could not find an existing community-created paste tip mount for the Structur3D Discov3ry paste extruder for any Printrbot printers. I checked the Structur3D Discov3ry forums as well as the usual 3D model sharing sites including thingiverse.com, youmagine.com, myminifactory.com, etc. I didn’t find anything that existed, so I designed my own mount for the Printrbot Metal Plus as well as an adapter that allows it to work properly on the Printrbot Metal Simple. My mount 3D models are available on thingiverse.com.

My design is inspired by the Structur3D Felix 3.0 3D printer’s paste mount (as far as I see in their videos and photos on their site). I took the following into consideration for my design:

Want mount’s height to be adjustable and use existing screw holes on printer (you will need longer M3 metric screws which you can get from small hardware stores in US, but not the big box home stores in US).

Want it to be sturdy and not unnecessarily vibrate or bend, so don’t go too thin. My design is 6mm thick and has vertical support rails to provide rigidity.

Want the paste tip mount to be adjustable to allow paste tip to be positioned properly (related: see #4 below for more details on offsetting print head).

Want mount to be super adjustable so it can be positioned out of the way while using the filament extruder, so it can be mounted on printer even using filament extruder.

Want options in clamping the paste plastic tubing or paste tips to the mount while allowing fine control of the paste tip height from the print bed. Just like filament, I’m anticipating the paste tip’s distance from the bed will be critical for a good print.

My mount consists of three 3D printed pieces:

Mount body – the major body of the mount that screws to the Printrbot using existing screw holes and longer M3 metric screws. Required by both the Metal Plus and Metal Simple.

Clip – this piece is screwed to the mount body using 6-32 x 1/2″ machine screws. The clip is what clamps the paste extruder tube or paste tip to the mount body, allowing it to be held firmly in place. It takes some force, but you can drive the 6-32 screws through the clip and into the mount body. The screws will carve threads into the mount body screw holes. You may want to use a drill or screw gun to drive these screws. Required by both the Metal Plus and Metal Simple.

Shim – this shim has oversized holes and is positioned between the Metal Simple’s extruder and the mount body. The 6-32 screws are inserted through the oversized holes. This shim is mounted between the extruder and the mount body. This shim allows the mount body to be positioned properly due to the design of the Metal Simple’s horizontal extruder plate. Only required/used with the Metal Simple.

To allow for maximum flexibility/options for mounting the paste tip. The mount has two different size holes to allow flexibility in clamping the tip or the hose/connector. The larger hole (on left of mount body) works well for clamping the extruder tips and the smaller hole (on right of mount body) work well for clamping the hose where the male connector fits into the tube (this is just above the tip). Here are the 3D models for the mount body:

The 3D model for the clip:

And the 3D model for the shim:

Here are photos of the printed mount pieces and illustrates how they screw together and fit with the extruder tips (on left mount hole) and hose (on right mount hole). On my Printrbot Plus Metal, using Simplify3D v2.2, I used a .2mm layer height, 4 solid layers for the top/bottom and side shells, 25% infill, 210 degrees Celsius using Printrbot PLA filament (at high-end for temp for PLA to get a good bond between layers), and support enabled for mount body as I printed on its side for vertical layer “grain”. The clip and shim were printed flat on print bed without support:

Here is a photo of the shim installed on the Printrbot Simple Metal, you can see how it lines up with the M3 holes that mount the extruder:

And here are all 3 pieces of the paste mount “installed” (yes, for this picture the mount is actually taped on the printer, it was an early pictures before I mounted it using M3 screws…kinda embarrassing) on a Printrbot Metal Simple. Click to enlarge the pictures to see better. Note that the shim is not necessary when mounting on a Printrbot Metal Plus:

3. Hook up the tubing: Most of the hard stuff is done, now hook up tubing from the extruder to the paste tip. Structur3D recommends the following sequence:

Fill syringe: Fill the syringe with your paste material, insert the plunger and remove the air. You can use a small paperclip to break the seal of the plunger while applying slight pressure on the plunger to remove some air bubbles. Air in your syringe or tubing will result in lack of print material and will have a negative effect on your print.

Attach hose: Attach a female connector to the syringe and push the tubing onto the connector. On the other side (closer to the printer), attach a male connector and screw the desired tip onto the connector. Finally, attach the hose to the syringe by screwing the syringe into the female connector.

Purge the air from the line: Push on the plunger of the syringe to force paste into the tube and until it is extruding from the print tip.

Mount the paste extruder tip: Secure the paste extruder tip to your paste mount on your 3D printer and secure the hose so it will not get in the way or drag in your print.

4. Adjust Z height: Again, given my goal to use my Printrbot to print both filament and paste, I’m planning to use one Z height offset to use while filament printing and second Z height offset to use while printing paste. Printrbot has documented the process (see steps 7-12) to use the M212 and M500 gcode commands to adjust the offset for your printer gantry/print head. Use M501 to find out your existing M212 Z value and write it in safe place. Then using Printrbot tutorial linked above, determine the M212 Z offset to raise the filament head about 1/2″ from print bed. Write down this second M212 Z value.

This is a the areas I’m still refining, but my plan is as follows: I want my filament extruder tip to be at its appropriate height while printing plastic filament. While printing plastic filament, my paste extruder mount will be removed from my printer or will be adjusted up so it is a 1/2 inch or so higher than the filament extruder tip. This will keep the paste extruder tip out of the way while printing plastic filament.

Prior to printing paste, I will do a few things:

Enter M3o2 gcode (this is temporary override and must be done each time the printer is power cycled) to disable the Printrboard’s cold extrusion safeguard. This will allow me to have my filament extruder unheated while printing paste and avoid the alternative, which is to update my Printrboard’s firmware to permanently disable the cold extrusion safeguard.

Enter M92 gcode to adjust the E (extruder) steps per millimeter to be about 35000(followed by M500 to save settings) , although this is definitely a value that needs to be monitored and adjusted by the community as we get more prints done using the Structur3D Discov3ry paste extruder on Printrbot machines. Given conversations with the good folks atStructur3D, I believe 35000 is a good starting point. Note that you will need to know your original M92 E value prior to adjusting to your paste settings so you can change it back to the appropriate setting for filament printing. You can see your current M92 setting by issuing the M501 gcode command. Here are the M92 recommended settings from Printrbot in the event that somehow forget your initial value.

Enter the appropriate M212 gcode Z offset (followed by M500 to save settings) to bring my filament extruder tip 1/2 inch or so higher than where it is positioned to print plastic, which will ensure it is out of the way for paste printing. This will allow my paste extruder tip to be positioned lower to the bed (remember, the paste tip mount allows the tip to be raised or lowered) than the filament extruder tip while printing paste. Note that you will need to know your original M212 value prior to adjusting to your paste settings so you can change it back to the appropriate setting for filament printing. Your appropriate M212 Z offset is highly dependent on your machine and the position of your Z sensor. Use the M501 gcode to see your Z offset settings prior to making any adjustments.

Adjust the paste mount: I’m anticipating the most difficult part of paste printing will be that the M212 offset is not put into effect until a print is started, so I will have to start my paste print with my paste extruder tip mounted about even with the filament extruder tip. I will use a skirt on all paste prints, and just as the skirt is starting to print (into the air!), I will pause the the print, wipe any paste from the tip and print bed, lower my paste extruder’s tip height toward the bed to be appropriate (width of a business card from tip to print bed?), then continue my print.

That’s all there is to it!

I will provide updates as I get printing different pastes. I think Nutella will be my first paste material to print. Pure silicone will likely be the second paste I experiment with!

Please post comments if you have any different or additional experiences to share!

Unfortunately, it is just a matter of time before your 3D printer’s hot end tip (or sometimes referred to as the nozzle) will clog. Actually, there are some 3D printers that require proprietary filament spools that provide a new tip with every filament spool. These printers are meant to be maintenance and hassle free, but have the restriction of not being able to use any filament available in the marketplace. All Printrbot 3D printers that use a Ubis ceramic hot end use the same hot end tips. I use the same .4mm hot end tips on my Printrbot Plus Metal, Printrbot Simple Metal and Printrbot Plus v2 (Model 1306).

The hot end tip screws onto the bottom of the Ubis Ceramic hot end. Below is a pictures of a Ubis Ceramic hot end. The shiny gold colored tip on the far right side is the hot end tip. Most of the tip is covered by the red insulating material:

The following pictures show a used, clogged tip (left) and a new tip (right) from Printrbot:

The behavior of your 3D printer makes it obvious when your hot end tip is clogged. If your printer has been printing properly and you start to see one of the following symptoms, you need to unclog or replace your hot end tip:

Nothing is coming out of the hot end tip and you you may hear a clicking as your extruder motor tries to push the filament into the hot end and it is slipping (and probably chewing through the filament)

The melted filament is coming out inconsistently from the hot end tip and instead of seeing a nice bead of melted filament, you see small blobs of filament with gaps between the blobs. It seems like the filament is sputtering out of the hot end tip.

Filament exits the hot end tip at an angle and is not falling straight down, and instead is pushed at an angle. In severe cases, the filament will get balled up on the hot end tip because the angle is so extreme. This symptom might only be able to be seen by raising the z axis up 50mm or so from the bed and extruding 10+mm of filament.

If you are experiencing symptom #1 or #2, you need to remove your hot end tip and either clean it or put a new tip on your printer. If you are experiencing symptom #3, be on the lookout for the clog getting worse and escalating to symptom #1 or #2.

Removing the hot end tip: On a Printrbot, you need to change your hot end tip with the machine at operating temperature (I set mine to 210 degrees Celsius for PLA and 240 for ABS). You have to be careful to not damage your thermistor that is located on your hot end underneath the red insulating material. I use an 11mm open-ended wrench to loosen and mostly unscrew my hot end tip, and use needle nose pliers to finish unscrewing the nozzle as it is VERY hot and I don’t want to drop it on the printer bed or anywhere else where something could be burned.

Cleaning the tip: You can search online and read about different ways to clean a tip. I have had mixed luck and like to have new tips available because you will undoubtedly encounter a clogged tip while you are printing something. You don’t want to have to wait for a tip to arrive in the mail to finish a print, so buy some extra tips and have them around.

Although it has not worked for me, some are able to unclog their tip by turning their printer’s hot end to a very hot temperature, say 250 Celsius, and leave it at this temperature for an hour or so. The idea is that the stuck filament will get hot enough to melt and ooze out of the tip.

For tips clogged with only ABS filament, try removing, cooling and soaking your tip in acetone and attempt to open the nozzle (hole) with a sewing needle that has a fine point (or consider small bits that can fit inside printer hot end tips). For tips clogged with only PLA, you can try heating the tip over an open flame to heat the filament and scrape it out with a needle. I print most with PLA and have had very limited success cleaning hot end tips.

Reinstalling the hot end tip: To reinstall the nozzle, make sure your printer’s hot end is at an operating temperature and start screwing the nozzle on with your fingers. Once your tip is grabbing the threads, use a 11mm open-ended wrench to finish tightening. The hot end tip will get hot VERY quickly. I tighten the hot end nozzle so it is snug (maybe a 1/8 turn after i start to feel resistance) and leave it for 10 minutes with the hot end still at operating temperature. Once the tip has come up to temperature, the tip will expand a bit, and then I use the 11mm open-ended wrench to again snug the tip tight. You do not want to crank down on the tip too much! If you skip the final step of heating your tip and doing the final tightening, you will likely have filament leak from the top of your hot end tip (not good).

When you change your tip, it is very possible that the new tip may not be the exact same height or the threads may cause the new tip to sit at a different distance from the printer’s bed. Once you install your new hot end tip, you should make sure you don’t have to manually adjust your z azis end stop (for manual z height machines) or adjust your z offset using M212/M500 for Printrbot machines with auto leveling. Below is a pictures of my original and replacement tip in digital calipers showing a .21mm difference, which is significant enough to require adjustment of my z height.

That’s it. Please leave comments if you have found better ways to clean or change your tip…